Coppola's highly charged view of the vampire classic is visually stunning, heavy on eroticism and violence, and weak in plot and performance. Oldman, in a number of amazing transformations, portrays the deadly bloodsucker as a lonely soul determined to reunite with his lost love, the innocent Ryder. Hopkins cheerfully chews the scenery as nemesis Van Helsing, newcomer Frost is fetching, Reeves is lightweight, and Ryder goes way over the top. Musician Waits is great as bug-eating madman Renfield. Filmed entirely on soundstages with beautiful costumes and some amazing visual effects and sets.
Could've been better. NWRdr4 at 2010-01-31 16:03:52
Gary Oldman is the best Dracula I've ever seen. Period. He steals every scene he's in, to be honest. Anthony Hopkins provides an amazing performance too, as the seemingly off-kilter Prof. Van Helsing. It's also a very visually-impressive movie. The film's main problems, however, lies in its uneven 'experimental' special effects (experimental in the sense that the film-makers went back to using old fx techniques), which are sometimes amazing, and other times cheesy; and Keanu Reeve's terribly fake British accent, which he puts to 'good' use by reciting some wooden lines every now and then. The script was okay, I thought; it could've used some touching-up here and there, but was overall decent.
So do I recommend seeing it? Absolutely. Just because it's not the best film out there doesn't mean it's not exciting and entertaining. If nothing else, you at least have an excuse to sit inside on a rainy day and curl-up with a nice horror movie.